“No,” Adam said with conviction. “There are no other versions of Custo. He is a man of his word. Custo will meet me at the loft.”
Adam was right. Each and every one of the Custos she saw, in spite of their small differences in approach, concentrated on the coded panel at the building.
“But he won’t go in,” Adam continued, as if he could direct Custo by will alone. “Our escape will have rotated the entry codes. He’ll know something is wrong. If he’s smart, he’ll walk away.”
Talia saw the many Custos’ expressions change as, indeed, his initial code was rejected. One Custo swore. Another raked his hands through his hair. Another stepped back onto the sidewalk to peer up the height of the building, then approached the keypad again.
All of the Custos entered the building.
Talia’s eyes teared, her breath coming faster. She had always liked Custo. He’d always seemed solid, direct, and real.
Adam groaned in frustration. “Damn it. No.”
“He’s a good friend,” Abigail said.
“He’s an idiot,” Adam roared back. The pain in his voice reverberated through Talia.
Every Custo drew his gun. All but one took the stairs; the other went with the elevator. Firearm raised, Custo entered the loft apartment.
A blur of movement obscured what happened next, but Talia caught the moment when Custo’s head jerked back, as if struck. She witnessed the sudden curl of his body around a belly-planted kick. She shuddered as he fell, spitting blood.
“What?” Adam asked. “What? What’s happening?”
Talia shoved away the shadows and retched, trying to get them out from inside her body, her mind. The coating of Otherworldly ick grasped at her throat as she heaved for air. The effort knocked her off balance and burned her from her core out, but Adam steadied her, drawing her against him.
A tremor of relief washed through her body—she’d wanted, needed, to be in Adam’s arms for a while. She just had no idea how to get there.
“Are you all right?” Adam spoke low, words short with tension.
Talia’s lungs were screaming, but she nodded a mute yes against his ribs. A faint tinge of sewer still clung to him, but underneath the smell was all Adam.
“Will you be okay here for a while?” He backed them both to the door of the room.
She shook her head. No. She knew what he was thinking. No way on earth was he going without her.
“Talia, these people seem fine. If they meant us any harm, they would have done something by now. And I’ll be back as soon as I can. I can’t stay. You have to understand, I can’t just stay and let Custo die.”
Talia did understand. He was being condescending again. Taking over. She wasn’t asking him to babysit her. If he could just get over his macho I-have-to-save-the-world routine, then he would know she understood. Her “no” had nothing to do with staying with these people.
He was going after Custo. She was going with him. She cocked her head to tell him so.
“Don’t look at me that way, Talia. You just said that the doctor wants you to take it easy,” he argued. “You need to heal. Besides, I’ll probably be walking into an ambush. I won’t be able to protect you.”
She pointed to herself, and then pointed to him. I’ll protect you. Duh.
His eyes narrowed. “You can’t scream. How can you protect me?”
Talia laid a hand on his chest, just under the U between his collarbones where she could feel the soft echo of his heartbeat, and pulled the shadows around them.
Adam knocked her hand away and the shadows snapped back. “No. The risk is too great.”
He may as well have slapped her. She gritted her teeth and glared at him from her darkness. Idiot man. She was going, whether he liked it or not.
Abigail laughed. “Poor Adam. Probably thought he’d found a woman who would follow his lead, do everything he said. Got a banshee instead. I need one of them big windows for you two to work it out against. Zoe, do we have a big window somewhere? Adam’s particularly good with windows. Maybe he could convince her that way.”
Talia’s face heated, but she ignored Abigail, stubbornly crossing her arms and blocking the door.
Adam looked back at Abigail. “Can you quit mocking me for a minute and help me convince her to stay?”
Abigail shrugged. “Why would I waste my time doing that when I know very well that she goes with you?”
Talia controlled a smug smile.
“She—? What—?” Adam stammered. Then he turned to Talia. “Oh, hell. Come on.”
Zoe followed them down the stairs, shouting over the rising whine of a mournful melody as they neared the main floor of the building. “You can take my car if you want.”
“Good,” Adam said as he looked over his shoulder, beyond Talia. He didn’t want to attempt a reverse trek through the sewer, nor did he feel comfortable with an open stroll up the five blocks from his current location to the loft’s building, especially with Talia’s distinctive looks.
Zoe passed off the keys and directed them up the alley. Adam regarded Talia as they sprinted toward it. “You’ll do what I say, when I say it, or I’m not going anywhere. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” she croaked.
This was a bad idea, taking her back to a building infested with either wraiths or SPCI operatives, or both. She was supposed to heal so that she could call her father and end the war. It was beyond irresponsible of him to allow her to come on a fool’s errand.
As a realist, he knew he might lose Custo, his surrogate brother. He couldn’t lose Talia as well. Yet, he couldn’t very well risk her following after he’d left.
Zoe’s car was a beat-up blue hatchback Accord circa the midnineties. Adam ran around to the driver’s side and crouched to get into the car, his knees hitting the steering wheel. Talia was seated and belted before he managed to fold himself into a position in which he could drive.
The car smelled like burned plastic in spite of the scented cartoon character dangly thing hanging from the rearview mirror. Random papers and debris littered the backseat. At least the car had a manual transmission.
Fiercely missing his Diablo, Adam slammed the Accord into first gear and accelerated down the alley at a crap seven mph. The car brayed when he floored the gas, but got him up to twenty by the mouth of the alley. He’d buy Zoe another car if he killed this one. Hell, he’d buy her another car if he survived the day.
Traffic was thickening with the start of the morning rush. A fleet of taxis jockeyed for position, blocking the intersection. Adam took the car onto the sidewalk with an ear-bracing scrape of the undercarriage, maneuvered around the cars to the angry shouts of their drivers, and ran the light to turn onto his building’s street.
“There,” Talia said, startling him. He hit the brakes.
“What?” The street had no pedestrians, only a line of parked cars.
“The red sedan. It’s what Custo was driving.” The red sedan was illegally parked directly across the street from Adam’s building. Adam pulled up alongside, stopping the Accord in the middle of the street, and hopped out.
“Get out,” Adam barked. He met her at the tail end of the car, grabbed her hand, and pulled her across the street. With his right hand, he drew his gun.
“We have to assume that whoever attacked the loft knows we’re here. They’d be watching the street. They’ll be waiting.”
Talia nodded. Her face was ash white. Scared, but not shaking. Not retreating into her shadows. She’d come a long way from that alley in Arizona.
“This is your last chance, Talia. You could make it back to that club. They’ll hide you. You could be safe there.” Why had he trusted Abigail’s word anyway? Just because she seemed to know everything didn’t mean she actually did.